President Donald Trump has terminated Commissioner Christopher Hanson from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the latest move by the White House to assert control over independent agencies.
Hanson said in a statement Monday that he was removed from the position Friday “without cause” and “contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees.”
Spokespeople for the NRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said Monday that “all organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction,” adding that Trump “reserves the right to remove employees within his own Executive Branch who exert his executive authority.”
Hanson, a Democratic appointee, was tapped to be the chair of the NRC by former President Joe Biden in 2021. He was replaced in the top spot when Trump selected then-Commissioner David Wright to serve as chair under the new administration.
Trump has sought more control over independent agencies since he returned to office, and his push has so far been supported by the Supreme Court. In May, the justices issued a two-page unsigned order declining to reinstate two members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board that he had fired, even though federal law bars the president from dismissing the officials for political reasons.
Hanson spoke out after Trump issued an executive order in February seeking to bring independent agencies under control of the White House.
“As a five-member bipartisan commission, the agency was deliberately structured by Congress to promote independence from outside influences that might turn the focus away from safety,” Hanson said at the agency’s annual regulatory conference in March. “This was a purposeful lesson learned from the days of the Atomic Energy Commission and implemented through the creation of the NRC.”
Hanson added in his statement Monday that it has been an “honor to serve” at the commission.
“My focus over the last five years has been to prepare the agency for anticipated change in the energy sector, while preserving the independence, integrity and bipartisan nature of the world’s gold standard nuclear safety institution,” he said.
Trump has pushed speeding the build out of new small nuclear reactors regulated by the NRC as part of his “energy dominance” agenda.
Last month, in a wide-ranging executive order to bolster nuclear power, he called for the NRC to streamline its licensing decisions.
